Derelict

The more time I spend on this weblog, the more I begin to realize how much like my psyche this site begins to resemble. By this, I mean, that this place -- much like my mind -- is a total mess, unkempt, broken, and in need of a major overhaul. I have been trying to motivate myself (when there's time) to add tags to all the blog posts, but that has since been tossed at the bottom of the priority heap. I've been trying to give this site a facelift, but unfortunately it continues to recede... not unlike my hairline.

I continue to convince myself that things are going to change, and they will in two weeks. I hope I can find the motivation and desire to make this site, and the others I maintain to appear in the way that I have been envisioning. But that has much more to do with how much energy I have (and how many daytime game-shows I insist on watching), than how motivated I am.

Most of the weblinks situated on the sidebar are broken. Tags are missing from more than 300 posts. I finally fixed a broken picture of me, and it took me how long? It was only today I realized that the image hosting site I was dependent on a scent few years go went tits up God-only-knows-how-long-ago. It was a damn good thing that I have kept backups of this site, as I have managed to retain 95% of the images that disappeared into the black hole known as the internet. Still, I have to re-upload every image manually -- and after some 20 minutes of frustration, I managed only to resurrect about a half-dozen images.

Once April 1st hits, things are going to be totally different. Say goodbye to MC Fro, the tree-hugging hippie, and say hello to MC Fro the Trailer-Trash Hermit. It's probably just as good; I likely destroyed more trees in my tenure as an Environmental Consultant than I managed to save. But that's another story for another day.

It's time to start cleaning up everything. This includes my house, my yard, my car, my website, my mind, and my life.

1095 Days And Counting

Three years ago to the day, I created the first post in this weblog.

In those three years, this website has gone through many growing pains, and many redesigns.

Each year a posted an image similar to this and would discuss how a bright(er) future for my little corner of cyberspace existed just around the corner.

Ok. So I'm no market analyst. But I have seen trends develop over the three years. And one of the apparent trends is the slump in visitors during the summer. July always seems to be the low point of the year with the fewest number of visits. Everything seems to turn around, with March and April being very strong months.

I would like to think my readership is getting stronger. My argument for this, is that even though this year's traffic is comparable to last year's, I have written far fewer posts. I would consider myself lucky if I write three posts a month.

In another respect, because of the diversification of the site, news related to the Savoys or Tung N' Groove is now posted on their respective webpages instead of here. I think this negatively affects traffic to this particular site, however increasing overall traffic. I however, do not compare and contrast the web traffic between the other sites.

The upgrade to Blogger Beta (which is the new Blogger now) is apparently beneficial. Those who query search engines such as Yahoo! or Google with specific keywords are flocking to my site. The meta-tags built into the new blogger is assisting in this. Popular keywords in the past few weeks have been Tongue N Groove and Canwood. This is adding to increased traffic I otherwise would not have received. I could only expect that once I go through the archives and add the proper tags, I may just as well increase my traffic in that respect. In those three years I have written about nearly everything under the sun.

If you examine the market, the number of weblogs available to the public has grown exponentially. I do not have the exact numbers, nor to I care to look for them at this moment, but I would not be surprised if the number of weblogs have increased tenfold since I began writing in 2004. It also occurs to me that the traffic to blogs have diminished, given the rise in popularity of social networking sites such as MySpace, YouTube, and FaceBook.

No I do not have a MySpace account, and I don't plan on making one in the foreseeable future. It's just another website to maintain, and it seems to me, it's merely a popularity contest, with little substance. I can't afford to waste my time sending instant messages to people I do not know, just because I linked to them, or they linked to me and call me "friend". I have a full-time job, I have a fledging musical career that I consider a full-time job. I have far too many hobbies and interests than available free time.

In three years, one would think that I have finally "found" my voice. I really can't agree with this. I think one's voice and opinion -- especially with respect to personal journals -- is a constantly growing and changing thing. I really believe that this is a personal journey, and given such, in a years' time, this blog may be completely different than what it is today. It certainly is much different than what it was in years past.

Overall, I still think that it is worth my time to continue to write. Like music, any level of creativity is good for the mind, and the soul. That being said, I believe I will continue to blog throughout the year, even if it may only be 2-3 times per month.

Tung N' Groove Site Officially Open

The Tung N' Groove Website has been declared officially open. I had to move up my schedule, as it was brought to my attention today that Tung N' groove's debut has been moved up to May 18, 2007 at the Redcliff Hylton.

We have a lot of preparations to complete before we are ready to hit the stage that May evening, bit it's going to be worth it. It will be well worth the wait.

Welcome, Tung N' Groove

You knew it was coming; I knew it was coming: Another f***in' website to manage. I have no idea how I am going to keep so many websites afloat, yet in the same breath, it doesn't make sense for me to boast about my new band on here, when it should be perfectly kosher to do it on it's own site. A permanent link to the Tung N' Groove Website is now available on the Nav sidebar.

At this point, the site is barely active.... and I mean such. There are no posts, and I am uploading relevant material when time permits. That means, hopefully by 2030, the site should be finished, and by then, the band should have broken up more than twice.

The site will of course, cater to all thing relevant to Tung N Groove, should include upcoming shows, a biography, the song list is already up, and anything news related will be published on the site. Rest assured, I will allow all other members (DH MA and KR) to freely contribute their thoughts on the site.

After two years of incubation, 2007 brings you Tung N' Groove, Medicine Hat's newest slutty Classic Rock sensation.

Tung N' Groove Makes Another Step Forward

Our showcases at local clubs have paid off. The Blue Turtle and the Royal Hotel -- with only one showcase at each club, have booked Tung N' Groove into their clubs this summer and fall. We are very excited to be an official local act, and we are looking forward to entertaining crowds young and old.

The next task at hand is to learn another 30 songs before August -- perhaps sooner, if we can pick up some more gig dates in the summer at other bars and pubs around town. We will be examining the feasibility of playing the Redcliff Hylton, the Mainliner Pub, and the Silver Buckle. this year.

Acquiring a PA system for the band will also occupy our summer.

This is near-perfect timing, as the Savoy Blues Band is just wrapping up a few dates in the next few weeks, before going on our annual summer hiatus. MA and I are going to be gigging lots in the coming months.

Amidst all this excitement, I have one other nagging project. To create a website to promote Tung N' Groove. Looks like I will have to manage yet another webpage.

The Status of v3.0

Google has announced that the new Blogger is no longer in beta (and for you blogging junkies, you have known this for quite some time). It seems that the transition of my sites have been rather transparent. I suppose this is a good thing; I hope that the new version will allow me to get a little closer to the vision I had for this website.

mcfro.blogspot.com has been going through a very lengthy period of renovation, and I expect it will continue to be this way for most of 2007. But here and there, there will be little, almost unnoticeable changes, and only through the passage of time will the site complete its' metamorphosis. So what, you say, is taking me so long?

Well first of all, it's not just one site I manage. I manage two weblogs, the other being the work-in-indefinite-progress ZanZee tour journal, plus I am a major contributor to the Savoy Blues Band website. I tend to choose to write in the journal which best suits the subject I choose to write about. For example, if MA and I ever decide that Tung N' Groove ever needs a website (which it likely will), then I will have to maintain yet another website.

The second thing that is most crippling, is that my schedule is extremely busy, and I often don't have the level of alertness necessary to write in a blog, or edit code. With two bands on the go, a dozen students, an album to produce, and a full-time day job, I have little time for anything else, even my private family life has been suffering. And as of late, I have been trying to spend less time on the computer, and more time with family. Sadly, the blogs are being put a little further behind in priority, which is tied with sleep at the moment.

Here is a preliminary roadmap of a few things I expect to be implementing into this website in the coming days/weeks. This list has been written mainly for my reference:

1. Integration with Google Calendar. Much like the Savoys Website, implement a calendar on this webpage that reflects my upcoming performances. These can pertain to any act; Savoys, Tung N Groove, or any other gig I am asked to sit in on. This is to replace the archaic iCalX.com method of advertising my upcoming performances. No one has yet complained, but even I know that viewing the data on the iCalX website is cumbersome and annoying. The time has come to simplify the information and make it more accessible using Web 2.0 technology,
   
2. Metatags. The new Blogger has allowed the use of tags within new posts. Since my site has been converted in its entirety to the new format, tags should be inserted in all older posts, in order to make searching the site a little easier. This may take an awful long time, as it will be a tedious, and painfully repetitive process to edit some 300+ posts. Thank the maker I do not have a blog with thousands of posts. I could kill two birds with one stone, and edit the entries that have spelling or grammatical errors at the same time.
   
3. Badges of [dis]honor should be streamlined. Only use the ones that are necessary. That means to keep SiteMeter, The Creative Commons license, and the BlogsCanada tag. When the above changes have been completed, the site version will be upgraded to v3.1
4. Consider re-modification of the layout, which includes the sidebar, and the "little things" that add personality to the site, i.e. posting footers changed from "posted by MC" to something ridiculous or amusing, like was once used: "MC was committed at".
5. Consider retiring Animal as my profile photograph. Consider using another photo, real or fictitious.
6. Continue the search for a new Blogger Beta Template. This may require taking elements of 2 or 3 different templates to arrive at one that I am most pleased with. Perhaps I should consider making a temporary blog to judge the progress and accuracy of the coding process. Once the new template has been successfully hacked and customized, it may be implemented into the original mcfro.blogspot.com site, where the version number can be increased to v4.0.
   

Under [Permanent] Construction

So I decided to upgrade to Blogger Beta. You can expect a number of changes to this site over the coming months, when I can spare time.

Picture Perfect

Blogger has just introduced Blogger Images, a new feature for everyone who has a free Blogger account to upload images for their blog entries. This is a fantastic new feature, and I imagine scores of bloggers are going to use (and abuse) it.

Blogger has had image hosting in the past, but to my knowledge, was only available to paying subscribers (i.e. Blogspot-Plus). [Ed. note: Upon a quick search, it appears that the Blogspot-Plus subscription is no longer available]. Thus, it seems the reason why they have allowed the service to all of us.

Since the inception of this website, I have been using ImgSpot as my primary image hosting service. Though it has generally operated well, I have found that my services have been mired by server crashes, lost images, and many errors while trying to upload my images. There was also a lot of coding I had to do, and I ended up having to steal and modify scripts in order to reduce my workload.

Oh Damn...

My brilliant idea I discussed in yesterdays' brief post has hit a snag. I don't think it will be feasible in the near future.

The software exists and is accessible. But one of two problems exist:

1. I have to upgrade to OSX server so I can install and run the necessary software. If you haven't checked lately, a copy of OSX is about $600.00 CDN. I just spent $150.00 upgrading to Tiger.
   
2. I have to pay for server space.
   

At this point, I need a zero-cost solution for my little endeavor. Either I must keep looking, or wait until someone develops a free solution to my predicament.

It's too bad, this little feature would have been very cool for all of us to enjoy.

An Epiphany

Epiphanies strike at the oddest times, and often the strangest occurrences will generate brilliant ideas.

I believe I have found the "gimmick" that I mentioned in last nights' post. I don't want to spill the beans quite yet, but I am in the process of investigating the feasibility of implementing my little idea.

What I can tell you, is that it will occur at a given time during the week, and I have yet to determine the time.

More info will come as soon as I know if this little pipe dream will become a reality.

365 Days and Counting...

In five days, we will witness the first milestone -- the first anniversary of mcfro.blogspot.com. I figured this would be the ideal opportunity to reflect on the past year, it's successes, and what may come in the future.

As you can see from the attached image, this site had some very humble beginnings. Even though I wrote like mad last May, I received next to no traffic. Things began to improve by August when I began to notice an increase in traffic. The two dips in November and February can be clearly related to my involvement in Grease, and my kidney stone attack, respectively. This month, however, I have seen a dramatic increase in traffic to my little website. Your guess is a good as mine as for the reason why my traffic has effectively doubled. Perhaps in the coming year there will be subsequent increases in my daily readership.

What I have noticed in many of the blogs that I visit daily, is that they have a gimmick that keeps people returning to their site. In many cases that gimmick is as simple as good, entertaining writing, such as Tony Pierce. GorrilaMask.net has the Daily Spank Bank, pictures of beautiful models, all scantily clad (if they are even clothed at all). I think keeping an archive of near-pornographic material on my site is juvenile; sure it will generate a lot of traffic from horny pubescent males, but that's not the kind of site I wish to have. What would be more reflective of my personality is to have a thoughtful, informative site that everyone can enjoy. Tony warns against this. In his "How to Blog" entry, he suggests that you should speak about religion and politics, that you should curse like a sailor, among many other refinements. He has a point, but I am going to be weary about his advice. The web would be a terrible place if there were 100 million "busblogs" out there. As much as I have raved about him in recent months, I don't want to be a Tony Pierce clone; I want to make my own statement.

Gorilla Mask also has another ingenious gimmick that generates scores of traffic. It's the annual Death Pool, a demented game where participants list their top choices on which celebrities (showbusiness, political or otherwise) will leave this mortal coil within the next 12 months. I am not even sure what kind of prizes are involved, if any, but it is definitely sick enough to grab my interest. I am considering the possibility of implementing such a gimmick, though I have yet to conjure up a completely original idea. And no, it will likely not be as demented as the Death Pool.

As stated in this prior post, I discussed the possibility of increased frequency of images on this website. This has already begun, though the images are not necessarily directly from my life. I am sure you are all interested in images of my recent experiences. A digital camera would be an asset for such, but it may be some time before I break down and purchase one. Tony Pierce was successful in begging for cash so he could buy an iPod, in fact he was so successful, he is currently begging for donations so he can buy a car. Hey Tony: do you have to claim these kinds of "donations" as income when you file your tax return? I have issues with accepting donations that don't go directly to charity. I suppose that's the moral socialist in me talking.

Directly related to images, is the banner situated at the top of the page. I am researching the feasibility of creating a number of banners, and having them load randomly with each site visit. I have found a script that will accomplish what I want it to, but the problem resides with the proper file hosting solution, which at this point, must be low zero-cost.

I also would like to see a little more discussion in this blog. In the entire year, there have been a total of two comments from outside sources. A few of you have opted to contact me via email, whom I personally thank. I want to know what you think. What would you like to see? What issues are bothering you? Am I right? Am I completely off my rocker? I will accept criticism if it is constructive. Comments like "MC Fro, you suck." will be deleted as there is no argumentive measures. Sadly, it was comments like this that eventually led Matt Good to remove not only the commenting features on his site, but he also removed the link to his email address.

Last summer, when I wrote my entry regarding Video Games, Bullying and Columbine, I was disappointed to see that it didn't generate much response. I was quite proud of that entry -- and I spent the better part of a week writing and revising my post so I could communicate my arguments as clearly as I could. Since Columbine and bullying are subjects that many people have strong feelings about, I figured I was destined to get some nasty email.

Surprisingly enough, that very page is now ranked second with respect to entry pages of my blog (the first is of course, the main page).

I have been wrestling with the idea of providing direct links to my favorite entries in the sidebar. This is specifically meant for the newcomers to read what I consider to be my best work. That may be quite an ambitious project, as I will have to go back and re-read everything I have written in the past year. That revision to the website may have to wait until summer, when I am a little less preoccupied with my music career.

I have thoroughly enjoyed writing for all of you this past year. This little side-project of mine has become a creative passion, and I fully expect to keep writing. I am looking forward to seeing all of you, and many more on the second anniversary of mcfro.blogspot.com.

mcfro.blogspot.com Has "Gone Public"

When I created this site about a year ago, I discovered a nifty little corner of the web called BlogShares. I ended up forgetting about it until very recently. I decided that trading blogshares in a ficticious stock market would be a good way to waste my valuable time, as well as lure potential readers my way.

As of today, mcfro.blogspot.com is now listed on BlogShares. The site is listed as "MC Fro's Blog" on the blogshares site. If you can't find my blog, then you might want to try searching by URL.

Let's start trading.

UPDATE: I have changed the BlogShares listing to the websites' proper name: mcfro.blogspot.com.

Programmers Write Code; Brilliant Programmers Steal It

The process of inserting images into my blog entries are a rather tedious and repetitive endeavor. It has been so long since I have written html code, that I have usually navigated to one of my blog entries that had an image, then copied and pasted the code and changed the image URL.

There are a number of image hosting solutions available to bloggers. Windows users are able to use Hello BloggerBot, as well as a myriad of others. Mac users are able to use Flickr, which seems like a good free solution, but I often wonder about the bandwidth issues.

I have been using ImgSpot for my image hosting as it is a free service, there are no bandwidth restrictions, nor do you need a membership. ImgSpot seems to do everything I need it to do for the time being, though I may consider trying Flickr in the future.

Embedding the image file into html code is rather simple. The problem arises if you wish to wrap text around your image (as I like to do). This requires a number of extra html tags, and I always seem to forget the proper order in which to place the tags.

In the last few days, I surmised that since the order of the tags remain the same, and the only change in the code is the URL of the image file, I could write an Applescript that would insert the tags without me having to search my archives for the neccessary code. It seemed simple enough.

As I quickly learned, writing code is not for the novice programmer. Applescript is a language that is designed to closely resemble the English language, but even so, I can't seem to get the syntax right. Computers are rather unforgiving that way.

Then the 30-watt bulb that is covered in cobwebs went on inside my cranium. This was a rather simple script, I should be able to find one that will insert a default string of text within a text field. With some searching, I found the required code within a discussion group. All I had to do was change the parameters of the script, and recompile the code.

I'd much rather borrow code for my projects, rather than fight with computer syntax.

Now that the process of inserting images into this weblog has become a little simpler, I expect there will be an increased frequency of images in the future.

Crack Open The Bubbly!

It has come to my attention that this website has officially topped 1,000 hits in under 1 year! I would like to send a special thank you to all of you who have stopped by, especially those who return on a regular basis to see what's new and exciting in my insignificant life.

Thank you, thank you all.

MC Fro

Precautionary Measures

This site has been operational for nearly eleven months. Some of the interesting things that have transpired over this time, is that I have likely written enough words to encompass a few novels by now, I have managed to obtain a few loyal readers, I have learned a few things about writing, a few things about programming, and a few things about myself. I am equally surprised that I have continued blogging over the course of this entire year. When I created this page, I would have bet that I would have quit blogging after a month or two. But here I am, nearly one year later, still writing away.

One thing that has been long overdue, is that I created a backup of this webpage, and saved it on my computer. I should have known well enough by now, given the fact that I have had computer troubles and loss of data over the past year. Even in years past, I have lost gigabytes of data due to computer crashes, bad hard drives, and operating system upgrades. After investing countless hours into the development of this site, and writing tens of thousands of words, I would hate to have all my thoughts disappear into oblivion if (and when) Blogger crashes. Even Matthew Good has not been immune to the wrath of computer failure, as he has mentioned in more than a few posts that he has lost months of writing. He has been lucky that his readership is large enough that a few good Samaritans were able to provide archives of Matt's entries. My readership is by many factors smaller than Matt's (he has claimed to get up to one million hits per month on his blog; I'm lucky to get 100), so statistically speaking, relying on the generosity of others to provide me with an archive of my writing is extremely remote.

While conducting the backup of this site, I made the innocent mistake of reading a few entries. I ended up being quite proud of the entries of the first few months. I felt my writing was objective, intelligent, detailed and overall enthralling. I was discussing many themes that were occupying my mind, and many of them had a philosophical twist to the writing. I think it is obvious that my writing has changed over the course of the year -- I hope it has changed for the better. I have found my early entries had little to do with recent events of my life, while recent entries are accounts of daily occurrences, as well as odd tidbits of product releases, etc. As of late, I am writing less, and less often. That being said, I am not sure if I am writing more concisely or not.

I was hoping to wait until the first anniversary of this site to discuss my future vision for this page, but perhaps this time is as good as any to reflect on the last year and plan for the future.

For the next year, like every other blogger, I want to increase my readership. Some bloggers, like Raymi, have been blogging for four or more years, and it has taken them as long to develop a dedicated following. Relatively speaking, this page is in its' infancy. I still don't even feel like I have found my voice, or the proper gimmick to allow this site to rise above the average weblog (a quick search for 'blog' has netted some 182 million webpages). I consider the best advice given to bloggers by fellow bloggers is to write well, and write often, if you wish to increase your readership. People will spread good writing by word of mouth (or word of hyperlink, in the 21st Century).

This year, I hope to include more images. People love pictures, myself included. Some of the best blogs I have read have included wondrous images either pulled from the web, or taken and modified themselves. I have dire need of a digital camera, and perhaps even a webcam. Voyeurism is a huge influence on web traffic; those who publish lots of photos of themselves (especially risqué images) get huge amounts of traffic. I will not resort to nudity or otherwise suggestive / pornographic material in order to increase my web traffic. But once I have a digital camera, the frequency of images will increase on this site. The other issue I am facing with images, is the problem of hosting. My "free" solution is not as successful as I had hoped. I have lost a great many images in cyberspace, and I would like a bit more stability in order to preserve the integrity of my entries. I am currently getting into the habit of storing backups of all my images on my computer in the event that subsequent images go AWOL.

A facelift may occur in the coming months. I am convinced that the background image is too bright, and makes the journal entries difficult to read. I have been really happy with the Blogger template provided in this page, including the color scheme. It will only be a matter of time that I will grow tired of this look, and desire something different.

I feel that "MC Fro's Top 5 Tunes" as well as the "Recently Read" sections of the sidebar may meet an untimely end. They are time-consuming to maintain, and I doubt that many of you are interested in those aspects of my interests. It may be difficult to let go of the Top 5 songs, mainly because I am passionate about the music I listen to, even though I feel that the list is not representative of my current musical tastes.

I fully expect that my writing style will evolve over the course of the next year. I hope to be blogging more about my personal life, as well as the depraved thoughts that plague my mind on a daily basis. I love the idea of publishing how incredibly messed-up I am on here. Even more so, I love the idea that people would read my thoughts and say "Wow, is that MC Fro ever fucked-up! I'm glad I'm not as crazy as he."

In the future, I believe that profanity will be within these entries in higher frequency. This was a difficult decision to make. Actually, it wasn't as much an intellectual decision as it was an emotional one. The truth be known, is that I don't like writing profanity. I think it tarnishes good writing, but in the blogging element, profanity tends to increase traffic. To further reinforce this point, I would like my writing to come a little more from the heart, rather than from the brain. Obviously, if I feel like swearing, I'm going to swear, rather than find some other creative way to be crude. It's not like anybody is censoring my entries anyway. Who the fuck did that? Damn you, guilty conscience!

I hope you return to see what will be new and exciting during the second season of mcfro.blogspot.com.

Ride the [Music] Elevator

Earlier this week, I have updated "MC Fro's Top 5 Tunes". Very little had changed in the rankings, though some moved up the chart, others moved down, and there was only 1 new entry on the charts. After careful thought, I considered that over time, the top 5 tunes would not be very representative of the songs I have been listening to recently.

The main reason for this, is the playlist I was using was a "top 5 most played". This playist ranks songs by a cumulative play count since I purchased my computer. If I listened to a song a dozen times six months ago, it is still going to rank very high on my playlist, even though I have grown tired of the song. So I created a new playlist that not only ranks songs by play count, but the song must also have been played in the last 30 days.

When I constructed this playlist, I found that I got some different results. Look to next week to see a new Top 5.

Not Another Top Five List

The latest addition to this website is the inclusion of "MC Fro's Top Five Tunes" on the sidebar. I had to resort to doing things the old-fashioned way, that is writing a bunch of code, though I was hoping I could find a computer application that would insert the images and data, and update the webpage automatically. I was not so lucky. A number of programs do exist that could accomplish what I wanted, but there were a few problems. First of all, sometimes these programs would not display images, others created their own formatting that would have not have worked well with this site, and lastly, nearly all of them required that I have access to some FTP server, and that is something I do not have at this time.

So it looks like I am going to have to update my top five list manually for the time being.

My "top five tunes" are simply the five most played songs in my iTunes library. Once I looked at the playlist, I was a little surprised at the results. First of all, the playlist has only been active since I purchased my computer, which was sometime in October. Other playlists that I have had on other machines would have registered completely different results.

I am also in the process of a massive purge of unwanted music on my computer. Out of a playlist of some 2500 songs, nearly half of them have not been listened to. I might end up finding a real gem that I cannot stop listening to. When this happens, it tends to skew the validity of my "top five tunes" playlist. In addition, I have only managed to encode about half of my CD collection, and I know that there are some really cool songs that aren't in my iTunes Library yet. It is going to take a number of months, but I foresee the top five tunes playlist making some interesting changes in the future.

I thought I might make a few comments about the songs that made the top five, which might provide some insight as to why they made this weeks' list.

1. I Can't Tell You Why - The Eagles. I love this tune. My parents used to play The Long Run album incessantly while I was a little kid. Though this song is a little depressing, there is some wonderful performances on this track. Don Henley's voice is slick jumping to and from falsetto, which is not an easy task for any singer, and I can't seem to get enough of that THC-influenced guitar solo at the end of the song. I listened to this song a number of times while I was learning to sing it -- so I wouldn't have to ruin the song if (and when) I decided to sing it at karaoke. That would probably explain why this song made it to number one.
   
2. It's My Life - No Doubt. I'm surprised this song made the list, as I like the Talk Talk version better. Actually, I'm not that big of a No Doubt fan in the first place. This song resides in a few playlists, including one I made specifically for parties. It's a playlist that contains only top-forty singles, thus almost anybody could enjoy the music, and would (ultimately) prevent me from incessantly skipping songs.
   
3. What Do You Need? - Goo Goo Dolls. I discovered this song by chance, and when I first heard it, I knew I found a keeper. I have a few albums by the Goo Goo Dolls, though I find their music is hit-and-miss. They have written some wonderful songs that have unique hooks to them (Naked comes to mind), although I find a lot of their b-sides boring to listen to.
   
4. You're Still The One - Headpins. If you are from Western Canada, and you have never heard of the Headpins, then you might have been living under a rock. This is the only Canadian rock band that I can think of that had a Gold record before being given a record deal. The Headpins managed to sell 50,000 copies of their debut album Turn It Loud from the back of their tour van. Originally began as a side-project for Chilliwack band members Brian "Too Loud" McLeod and Ab Bryant, the Headpins quickly rose to the top of the Vancouver music scene. In fact, these guys were so loud, they were louder than The Who!
   I have shared the stage with the Headpins on at least half a dozen occasions. They are one of the hardest-working Canadian bands out there. Next time they come your way, be sure to check them out. They are well-worth the price of admission.
   
5. If I Had a Rocket Launcher - Bruce Cockburn. Every time I drive, I am singing this song. I never expected a beatnik like Bruce to have such a dark side to him, which is probably why I love this song so much. I can't help but smile when I hear him sing the final line with such vengeance: "If I had a rocket launcher / some son of a bitch would die!"

I think updating my Top Five Tunes weekly is a little ambitious. I will monitor and see if the list changes by next week. If not, I may have to resort to updating the list monthly.

Blogs.ca

I have been forgetting to mention that this blog has entered its' ninth month, and I wanted to reflect a bit on its' [relative] successes.

The first thing that comes to my mind is that I am still blogging regularly after nine months. I find this to be a bit of an accomplishment, as I usually get bored and find a new hobby within 30 days.

The second thing that crosses my mind is that a select few of you continue to return to this page to see what kind of nonesense I have to write about. Some of you know me personally, and some of you don't know me at all. I watch my Site Meter; you don't block your cookies. There's a few of you in the Eastern Time Zone and a few in Russian Federation Zone 7 that keep coming back. Don't worry, it's cool. Readership in this blog grows every month. Sure, I'm not getting millions of hits, but my evil narcissitic side wants to expand his sphere of influence. [insert scheming sinister laugh here: "Muuahh ahh ahh ahh ahh!"]

About a month ago, I submitted my site to BlogsCanada, which is one of those database sites that list thousands of blogs. The webmasters of BlogsCanada, however are a little picky when it comes to choosing what they deem to be acceptable content. I suspect that they want to have quality material on their site (whatever quality means), they might be weary of malicious content, be it terrorism-related, anti-semitic, or other simliar ilk, or perhaps they want to filter out kiddie porn. Today, I got a message from one of the webmasters stating that my site has been added to the BlogsCanada directory.

Of course the reason why I submitted it [this site] in the first place is an attempt to increase my readership. I have linked to very few bloggers, and I doubt that anyone else has linked to me, so I am in my own little corner of cyberspace.

On a different tangent, I am surprised that some people actually make money blogging. I have heard claims that some people make as much as $5000 per month by placing ads on their blog (I find that hard to believe). I have issues regarding ads and banners on my site, and as long as blogging doesn't cost me any money, then the ads will remain absent from this site. On the other hand, if this blog began to get a serious amount of traffic, and I had to buy server space and bandwidth, then I would have to consider ads. But I expect that will never happen.

Jim Elve is the main figure at BlogsCanada. He writes a column of the highest quality, and is currently addressing issues that involve bloggers directly. I'm referring to the "C" word. Copyright. This entry discusses how bloggers are being plagarized by a service/product called Skweezer. For a monthly fee, Skweezer "compresses" web content for display on your cellular phone, PDA's, or other small-screened portable device. It is essentially a filter that removes images and coverts everything to plain text. What is upsetting authors, is that their content is not only being changed in its' presentation, but if you profit from ads on your site, you will find that Skweezer removes your advertisments and replaces them with their own. Not only are they profiting from subscribers, but they are profiting from running their own ads. The author who makes a little money from running ads on his site is ultimately the loser.

If you are a webmaster and rely on ads for revenue, you might want to consider blocking Skweezer's IP address from accessing your sites. It is 216.115.239.17. It seems that Skweezer has run into some sort of legal action regarding the re-distribution of copyrighted material, but for now it seems that the only thing we can do is block Skweezer's IP.

For the little guy like me, this issue doesn't affect me much. If I ever profit from this little website, you'd be sure that I'd be blacklisting Skweezer.

New Beginnings

By now you have undoubtedly seen the new graphic at the top of the page. I have had components of that graphic sitting on my hard drive for a few months now, but I didn't have quite everything I needed to complete its' design. I was looking for a specific font, and I needed a scanner so I could choose the appropriate photos. I wanted them to be respective of the last ten years of my life.

The design of the graphic and embedding of it into the web's took considerably longer than I expected. I won't go into the boring details though, but it took the better part of an afternoon and part of the evening to finally have everything the way I had envisioned.

I hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable New Years' Eve. I ended up having my own little party with some close friends. There was far more alcohol than what we could consume. I expect that I won't have to make a trip to the liquor store until after Easter. Three of us pulled out guitars and we had a little jam session. We ended up teaching a few things to each other, played a few rock standards, and overall had a great time doing so. The session reaffirmed myself that I have to spend more of my time making music.

The party died shortly after 12:00. Some of us were falling asleep before midnight, and others had to work early the next morning. I had been up since 6:30 that morning, so my second wind had already came and gone by midnight. I was well-behaved that evening and was quite happy that I escaped the dreaded New Years' Day Hangover.

I didn't really make any New Year's resolutions, and I probably should have. If I resolved anything, it is to take my musical career in some new directions, and make more money at it. I am still entertaining the idea of my little recording studio (see previous post), and I think that could make me a few bucks a year (even if it just paid for my gear, it would be worth it).

I know that I cannot be truly happy if I am stuck in some job that's making somebody else rich. I have always been a person who wanted to do his own thing. If I choose to make that plunge, I surely am damning myself to lifetime of poverty.

It's kind of like the yin and the yang. I have to have the crappy day job in order to pursue the fun night job. My expenses are far too high for me to live on one salary alone.

By the way, the best Christmas present I got this year was from my insurance broker. My vehicle insurance premiums have dropped more than two thousand dollars per year. It all has to do with that nasty car accident that I was involved in three years ago. It's finally off my record. Now I can afford to pay off my car, and lower my expenses further. Then I have to start tackling those dreaded student loans.

Right Place, Wrong Time (a.k.a. Not-So Real TV)

It has been a bit of an adventure re-reading the entries from my 1999 tour journal. Memories that have since disappeared have come flooding back to my consciousness, and with them have returned the feelings of exhilaration, drunkenness, fatigue, anger, frustration, longing, and in some cases infatuation. At times I can hardly believe I am the same person. It's been five long years. Reading these entries is all it's taking me to realize how boring my life now seems.

I have been paying particular attention to my writing style. While I have been transcribing these journal entries, I have also been doing a great deal of editing. There are scores of extraneous information that many readers would not understand. This is the type of relative information that "you had to be there" to understand. This of course, just will not do in this context, so I am often paraphrasing passages in order to make them more relevant to everybody.

I am also revising the language. I am removing a great deal of the profanity, probably because I feel that it just isn't necessary. Some strong language will remain, if I feel the words are warranted.

Names and identities are also being censored. I may employ initials to represent people I have met, or create pseudonyms for all of them -- I have not yet decided. I fully expect that I will use Dave and Arleen's names throughout the journal, as many of you already know who they are.

By far the biggest change to the journal is the incorporation of CSS and html. When these journal entries were originally published, they were written in emails that could only support plain text. At the time, I had little knowledge of html programming, no knowledge of blogs, and I had no means of digitizing photos. This time around, I can hyperlink and add images. The experience should be more vivid this time around, and hopefully I can tell the story the way I wanted to in the first place.

It amazes me how quickly technology advances. I remember in 1999, how I thought it would benefit me if I could take a laptop with me on those long journeys. I could have written emails by the dozens, I could have checked my email on a regular basis, and I could have been a little more entertained than what I was (boredom was a serious problem while on tour). Back then I did not have the finances to afford an expensive laptop or a digital camera. In some cases, the technology wasn't even developed yet. Cellular phones with built-in digital cameras did not exist. Wireless internet technology was in its infancy, most people never had heard of a thing called a 'blog', and the only kind of internet connection most people were familiar with was known as "dial-up". To connect to the internet via a cellular phone was so expensive, I would have had to spend all my bread on airtime fees.

If I were to go on a similar tour today, I would be taking a digital camera-phone, as well as a laptop, and I would be documenting my tour in extreme detail. I would be taking photos of every club, every hotel room, every restaurant I ate in, and every person I met. People might think I was crazy pointing that cell phone at everyone and everything, but I know that on-line journal would become a hit.

People like to pry into the personal lives of strangers. This explains why blogging has become so popular, which is the same reason why Reality-TV has been dominating Network Ratings for the last five years.

Not-So "Real" TV

Those of you who know me personally also know that I have an utter dislike for reality-based television. It could be because I consider it the crack-cocaine of prime-time television programming, or because of the trials and tribulations that the producers put these 'civilians' through are so far-fetched and unbelievable that I just find this form of entertainment nauseating. I think the true reason why I hate Reality TV is because I think the viewers (i.e. the general public) are getting the wool pulled over their eyes.

I am sick of all the television commercials that state: "and don't forget to tune in this week to witness the shocking conclusion that will leave you in disbelief. All this and more on this week's episode of __________." There is something in these statements that really bother me. Do these television executives really think I have an IQ of 65, and I believe everything the television tells me? That's the first problem with America today is that they are conditioned to believe everything they see on television -- like they are actually winning the Iraq war.

Some of these shows are so unbelievable that I begin to think that Reality TV closely resembles Wrestling.

Reality television producers have a few tricks up their sleeve that they would not like the public to know about. First of all, it's not entirely "reality". The producers will often edit and delete entire passages, sequences of events, or subplots, and take them out of context to create drama. The point in case is if you watched last night's season finale of NBC's the Apprentice. Stacie J was eliminated in one of the first episodes of the season, ousted by her female competitors who coined her as "unstable". This revolved around some footage showing Stacie J at the Mattel headquarters, playing with a Magic 8-ball trying to divine her team's success. The footage of the show suggested that Stacie J was wasting precious development time, while the rest of her team was slaving away. This footage came back to bite her, as Stacie J was eliminated within a few episodes.

Last night's live finale episode featured Stacie J explaining the Magic 8-ball footage. She explained that the 8-ball didn't come into play until the team had finished their task. Not only that, but what was strangely absent was the footage showing most of the entire team playing with this Magic 8-ball. So I consider this definitive proof that the producers of the show deliberately used this footage out of context to create drama. The producers also knew that the other female candidates would conspire against her, citing her superstitious tendencies, and use that for dramatic impact.

The other part of the formula to Reality-TV success is cast selection. Before I get into too much detail in this, I should probably explain that the main premise of reality television is the Darwinist ideology of these shows. The weakest are systematically removed one by one every week until one ultimately remains. This is not necessarily the case given the "rules" of the show, as often the strongest contender is often voted out by the weaker majority.

What viewers might find surprising, is that contrary to popular belief, the producers of these reality TV-shows often do not pick the strongest applicants to be featured on the show. The applicants are first selected on basis of aesthetics. That's right. Where television is concerned, appearance and/or sex appeal takes precedent over everything. Once the uglies are cast out, the candidates are put through a number of aptitude tests as well as physical training. But
then a strange thing happens, the producers do not choose the strongest candidates to be featured on this arbitrary reality show; they often choose the weakest candidates!

No why would the producers do such a thing? The answer is simple. Drama is created not in the successes, but in the failures. Drama is also created in forcing people with abrasive personalities to work together. This of course, results in power struggles, fights, backstabbing, temporary alliances, and a whole lot of filthy language -- a recipe for Reality-TV success (hey, everybody loves dialogue with incessant beeps).

The context and theme of a Reality-based television show is rather arbitrary. The theme is only to catch the attention of target audiences. Think: The Apprentice - people in business or business school; The Biggest Loser - overweight audiences; Joe Millionaire - single greedy females [ed. note: The Smoking Gun has cited that much of this series was a farce -- including the lead male role]. If you removed the main theme from all these shows, they would all be the same. Darwinism without the carnage.

This week I have heard on the radio that the TV-ratings for Reality-based TV shows are plummeting. What surprises me the most that it has taken the average American about five years to figure it out. That being said, how many other Reality-Television series are complete farces?